As American regulators continue to consider the pros and cons of the proposed Live Nation / Ticketmaster merger, the whole shebang has just been referred to the UK's Competition Commission by the good old Office Of Fair Trading, which is a bit tedious for the live music and ticketing giants who'd rather get merged sooner rather than later.
When the two live music players announced their intention to merge earlier this year a number of commentators predicting European as well as American competition authorities would take an interest - with both companies boasting a significant share of their respective European markets.
The OFT's recommendation that the UK Competition Commission investigate the merger proposals seems to be based in particular on a submission to them by a German ticketing company called CTS.
As previously reported, prior to Live Nation and Ticketmaster's merger talks the former was in the process of ending its long term ticketing partnership with the latter, announcing it would take ticketing for its many festivals, tour and venues in house. That has already happened in the US where Live Nation's own ticketing operation went live in January - and similar plans were afoot in other territories as its other Ticketmaster contracts around the world expired.
Although Live Nation Ticketing is in theory an in-house operation, in fact it is powered by ticketing technology owned by Germany's CTS. Not only that, but in some European territories, including the UK, CTS were due to provide staff for Live Nation's ticketing operation as well as technology, in essence that's them taking over from Ticketmaster as the promoter's preferred ticketing agency.
When the merger proposals were first announced, CTS issued a statement saying they'd had assurances any merger wouldn't affect the ten year deal they had just struck with Live Nation. That, though, doesn't seem to be the case, because CTS seem to have now told the OFT that they are likely to lose their Ticketmaster contract in the UK as a result of the merger, and will probably withdraw from Britain completely if that happens, leaving the UK ticketing market dominated by just two major players, Ticketmaster and See Tickets. Although the UK market is already pretty dominated by those two companies anyway, CTS's statement on the matter was enough to get OFT officials concerned, hence their decision to get the Competition Commission involved on this one.
But the Commission's investigation is likely to consider much wider issues than just the impact the merger will have on CTS's grand plans to get a sizeable slice of the UK ticketing market. As in America, they will consider whether having one company so dominant in the tour promotion, venue management, artist management and ticketing sectors will give Live Master an unfair advantage, to the detriment of artists, smaller independent players in each of those areas of the music business, and, ultimately, to consumers, on the basis too much dominance in the market might allow Live Master to push ticket prices and booking fees up.
The two hopeful merging partners will presumably present arguments in the UK similar to those presented in the US. First, that the merger will likely lead to Live Nation's biggest competitions, AEG Live for example, ceasing to work with Ticketmaster, making the ticketing market more competitive. Second, that there will be no exclusivity arrangements between the different divisions of Live Master, and that execs in any one division will be able to do deals with rivals of another division if doing so is in the best interest of an artist, live music brand or venue. And third, that this deal isn't about Live Master dominating any one part of the live music business, but rather it is symptomatic of a trend in the wider music business for all major music firms to diversify. Live Master isn't just competing with CTS and AEG Live, but with Universal Music, and other media and entertainment congloms too.
It remains to be seen if UK regulators, or any other European authorities, prove to be problematic for the merging companies. With the UK Competition Commission not expected to report back on the merger until late November, the OFT's decision will certainly delay the Live Master merger a little - the merging firms had previously expressed an interest in doing the deal by early Autumn.